Rabbi Horowitz Presents the Deterministic Fallacy
February 13, 2012 1 Comment
Language Event, Narrative Structure and God
July 29, 2010 3 Comments
The movement upward in this consideration as presented is fractal-esque
By: Jay
I propose a modified form of the transcendental argument for God’s existence. Not that it’s different, but it’s an aspect to the argument I’ve never seen previous proponents take. It occurred to me while reading Alisdair MacIntyre and while considering some of what Husserl and Karl Otto Appel have said. But of course, debates get old. They get old as I get old, maybe. Anyway, the subject matter itself is still worthy of reflection, even if one chooses not to engage in debate. Didn’t debate used to be a respected art? yes. But in our INGSOC modernity, questioning is itself suspect. But to the point.
MacIntyre points out that there is a kind of narrative structure for any meaningful conversation to take place. He makes a convincing case in his piece mentioned above. It occurred to me that for the localized instance of conversation to make sense, though, there has to be a larger narrative structure within which the localized conversation takes place. MacIntyre’s The Virtues, The Unity of a Human Life and the Concept of a Tradition gives an example along the lines of approaching someone gardening. To say a nonsense statement like “flight of the condor eats cheese wings perpetually,” has no meaning. In fact, to say even a meaningful phrase assumes some sort of context, such as, “how is the gardening coming?” or something of that nature. So why is it that we do one and not the other? Deconstructionists, relativists, nihilists, and so on, can say that it’s just utilitarian and social convention that has caused to use certain sounds in a certain way to stand for certain things, and that we evolved this way, blah blah blah.
But this kind of simple, mundane interaction doesn’t just show a kind of appropriateness to the content of what can be said, it also evidences a narrative structure. For example, generally, such a conversation would have a greeting, middle, and climax. Granted not always per se, but even a passing hello, has a kind of narrative structure to it, with an intended meaning that one party has, that the other party receives and many or may not acknowledge. Again, the intentions obviously vary as well as the received meanings and responses, but none of this changes the loosely narrative structure of such interactions. Read more of this post
Resolving Essence/Energy Disputes With Christology
April 11, 2010 Leave a comment
By: Jay Dyer
No one should be afraid to read someone even the West believes to be a Doctor of the Church. Some Latins, however, actually discourage people from reading St. John of Damascus. Ironically, Aquinas himself read the Damascene and cited him extensively.
Since I can’t seem to get anyone to read Book III, I’ll post the relevant chapter that explains it all. Why do I keep harping on Book III? In this Book of On the Orthodox Faith, St. John give his exposition of the teaching of Ephesus, Chalcedon and Constantinople II and III. These councils are key, as they focus on Christology. Christology is central, since that is our bridge to God, and not speculation and philosophizing about God’s essence in supposed “natural theology.”
It is in Christ that we meet the Father and the Spirit. It is the Incarnate Christ who shows us the Trinity. So if we want the clearest, most explicable understanding of the meaning of the essence/energy discinction and what hypostasis is, or what enhypostatized means, we should look to Christology, as it should be evident that what we formulate about the ontological Trinity must match up with our doctrine of Christ Incarnate. In other words, it makes no sense to come up with some hyper-philosophical, speculative view of God “ad intra” and God “ad extra,” as if we can come up with views that don’t have to match up with what we are saying about the divine hypostasis Who assumes human nature.
Everything about Christology proves the essence – energy distinction and is the doctrine of the 6th council in particular. Below, St. John exposits perfect Christology, as it culminated in the 6th Ecumenical Council.
Confusions resolved. Read more of this post
